


The Last Crown

by Virareve



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire & Related Fandoms, A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Action & Romance, Action/Adventure, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, CollegeProfessor!Brienne, F/M, Gen, Lawyer!Jaime, Restoration of Monarchy, character tags to be updated, some canonical character deaths included, the path to the throne is well and bloody
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-11-21
Updated: 2020-12-07
Packaged: 2021-03-10 07:34:19
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 3
Words: 6,378
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27649603
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Virareve/pseuds/Virareve
Summary: In 1923, the royal family of the North, House Stark, was executed in cold blood while the rest of the country descended into a civil war. After a slew of weak governments, the Northern people have voted to restore the monarchy in the present day.King’s Landing-based lawyer Jaime Lannister finds himself embarking on the biggest case of his professional career as he is tasked with performing a background check on the candidate expected to take the throne.In the quiet village of Queenscrown, expat college professor Brienne Tarth watches the news with distant interest, imagining the restoration to pass as all things do, with little to do with her.
Relationships: Alys Karstark/Sigorn, Dacey Mormont/Robb Stark, Jaime Lannister/Brienne of Tarth, Marna Locke/Edwyle Stark, minor - Relationship
Comments: 50
Kudos: 56





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> As with everything I write, there are always others who help make the story whole:  
> Thank you to sdwolfpup for taking the time to beta this chapter. Additional thanks to NaomiGnome, EryiScrye, and irisinthesun for all the emotional support and writing advice they provided. I cannot wait to share this story with the you all.

**_Winterfell Castle_ ** ****_  
_**_Winter Town, North_ ** **_  
_** ******_Fall 1923_**

Edwyle, King of the North, looked up from his desk in his private solar as the door swung open. It was the first time since he sat down at dawn he’d turned up from his papers full of duties.

Marna, his wife and queen, rushed into the room, bringing with her a ghost from his past. 

“Bloodraven,” Edwyle’s voice came out, catching in his throat. 

The bastard son of the former king of the Crownlands looked haggard, his clothes threadbare and his layers of coats more like thin dishrags than appropriate wear for the clime. He was missing an eye now, which Edwyle was sorely tempted to ask about, but the scar there looked old, like something that had happened far in the past. He was skinny, malnourished, nothing like the strong, muscled commander who’d once sauntered into Winterfell with Shiera Seastar on his arm. Someone the boy Edwyle of yore had looked upon with awe.

“I’ve looked for you,” Edwyle said faintly, “for years.”

Brynden said nothing, looking past him to the painting that hung on the wall, “You have a son,” he said.

“Yes, Rickard,” Marna agreed. She studied the man who had been a confidante to them in the early days of their marriage before he disappeared with a winter snow. “He is a good boy, diligent, eager to learn. And I am with child again.”

Bloodraven swung his bright red eyes from the painting and looked to her belly, seeming to finally note the slight curve there. He pressed his lips together so hard they went nearly as pale as his albino skin. “Then it’s started,” he said, sounding resigned.

“What has?” Marna asked. Edwyle remained quiet; the man before him was nothing like his old friend, not his appearance, and so very clearly, not his countenance. It was like a stranger stood before him, bearing a faint resemblance to Brynden Rivers, but he knew it was him all the same. 

“Don’t be afraid,” Bloodraven said, looking between the two, “Even when it seems the Gods have abandoned you, trust them.”

“How can you say that,” Marna said, looking irritated. She did not seem to like this apparition any more than Edwyle. “Do you know how many babes I’ve had to lay to rest? How many of ours never saw light? Never opened their eyes? The gods left us long ago.”

Brynden sneered and stalked up to Marna, holding her face tight in his hands. Finally, Edwyle’s brain surged and he jumped to attention, his chair flying back, his desk groaning as it tipped ever so slightly forward. “Get your—”

“Why do you speak this way?” Brynden asked her, sounding furious, he threw his hands off her as if he was filled with disgust, and pointed to the painting of their boy. “Look at your little one. Does his life mean so little to you?”

“How dare you!” Marna hissed, putting her hands to his chest and pushing him back so that he fell to the floor. For a brief moment Edwyle felt pride - his Marna was nothing like those weak Southron women. Brynden’s Shiera had been only wit and beauty, but his wife was all the strength of the North contained in one. She pulled a knife from a hidden lining of her dress, holding it up. Edwyle had done the same, pulling the one he kept hidden in his desk.

Brynden looked at them, dazed. He shook his head and then sagged.

“My apologies,” he said, rising to his feet and holding up his hands, “I came to warn you and instead, I’ve acted a fool.”

“Warn us of what?” Edwyle said, coming to stand beside Marna, still gripping his knife tight. 

Brynden didn’t speak, swallowing hard and grimacing. His eyes shut and he looked pained.

“Tell us, Bloodraven” Marna spat, stepping forward and pressing her knife to his throat.

Slowly, Brynden opened his eyes. “I’ve seen death, mountains of corpses, lords and ladies and their children. The castles will crumble. The walls will fall. The snow will turn red.”

“What do you mean?” Edwyle asked, his stomach dropping. He’d only seen this side of Brynden once before, long, long ago when Edwyle was just a boy, but in his heart he knew.

“A vision. I tried to stop it, but it has come again and again and cannot be avoided.”

Marna’s grip began to slacken with her confusion, she looked at Brynden’s face searching it, but was lost.

Bloodraven looked at her, “Do you know that soon I will die a terrible, agonizing death?” His face was so lost in fear and pain that Marna let go of her knife and it clattered to the floor. She stumbled back into Edwyle, who held her securely. 

Brynden did not turn on the offensive, did not try to attack now that he was not held in her grasp; he simply looked off into nothing, focused on something far beyond the room.

“Before the season is done, I will be dead. If I am killed by common assassins, your family has nothing to fear and the Starks will continue to rule for hundreds of years. But,” he stopped, coming back into the room and fixing Edwyle with a dead stare that made him feel hollow and empty. “If I die by one of your own, there will be blood in this country. Every man will rise against his neighbor, and brother will kill brother in hate. There will be no love for the countryman. And there will be no nobles any longer.” Marna’s hand gripped Edwyle’s arm tightly while Brynden spoke. “If one of your relatives kills me, you will all be dead before the summer. The Northerners will be the ones who see to every death upon you and your own. You should all fear for your deliverance. Tell your family I will be the sacrifice who pays the price.”

“This…” Marna had regained her faculties and shaken Edwyle off. She stood straight. “This is madness, Bloodraven. You are old and time has caught up with you. Nothing more.”

Brynden shook his head. “This vision has haunted me for many years now. I had hoped to avoid it but it seems beyond our hands. The night is dark and full of terrors. Be wary for I shall not see it myself. My hour is near.”

“If what you say is true,” Edwyle interjected, remembering the man who fondly regaled him with stories while his lady sat at his side, “then stay here, stay with us and we will have you protected. No harm will come to you then.”

Brynden shook, trembling with fear. “This evil that comes, it’s so great. The North will be lost.”

“You’re lying,” Marna declared, but she bit her lip, belying her bravado. “Our gods lie to you if they even exist.”

Brynden looked at her and shuddered His eyes closed and he fell back into the armchair behind him. Unsure, the king and queen watched him. He stopped, his eyes opening, scaring them with the uninhibited joy that was opposite from the gloom he had professed not a moment before. 

“Fear not. There is another vision. Salvation. The first vision to come to me, but it is a wonderful prophecy I can see so clearly.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Notes from ASOIAF canon:  
> Edwyle Stark and Marna Locke are the parents of Rickard Stark. House Locke is located in the North and has no relation to Locke, the character from GOT. House Locke's seat is Oldcastle which is located on the southeastern coast of the North. 
> 
> Bloodraven was the lover of Shiera Seastar, his half-sister. Both were part of the cohort of "Great Bastards" fathered by King Aerys I. Bloodraven asked Shiera to marry him four times. Shiera refused him every time, but continued as his lover. Bloodraven served as the Hand of the King, Lord Commander of the Night's Watch, and the Three-Eyed Raven.


	2. Chapter 1: Here Be Dragons

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **Mind the tags!**
> 
> Graphic descriptions of violence ahead.
> 
> This story will include some potentially triggering depictions of violence, starting with this chapter. I will briefly summarize the events of this chapter in the ending A/N for those who wish to know what happened without reading. Any such chapter will be marked with a summary at the end. 
> 
> Thank you to sdwolfpup for taking the time to beta!

**Bolton Square, Winter Town, The Present** ****  
**Sunday, September 9** **  
****11:59 AM**

The last word Jaime Lannister heard from Cleos Frey saved his life.

“Duck!” the younger man shouted and before Jaime could react, he felt a hard kick to his stomach that sent him sprawling backward in his chair. His chair hit the granite terrace floor with a hard crack, his head following with a hard blow. He cried out in pain.

Screams flew into the air. Hundreds of restaurant-goers, tourists, and service workers jumped to their feet to hightail it out of Bolton Square. 

Dazed and hurting, Jaime watched bullets fly above him, feeling as if he weren’t a part of the scene. Red mist rose into the air and he watched the cloud spread with a vague interest he couldn’t quite connect with as his faculties failed to perform.

The recognition of the taste of iron in his mouth finally snapped him from the haze of a possible concussion. He spat in revulsion. Jaime rolled over to look at his companion, but the man was unrecognizable after a round of bullets through his upper body. Red pooled under him, spreading fast over the flat ground. The windowpane that had been behind Cleos' seat was shattered, splattered with blood, and caught with small pieces of sinew. 

Jaime looked to the street, where the bullets had come from, to see an ugly Trant Motors SUV weaving in and out of traffic in the bright daylight sun. The car was a garish shade of pink, a lot like the flesh that was revealed under Cleos' skin, with peeling paint and windows that were tinted so black Jaime didn’t know how the driver could even see out. The long barrel of a gun waved in the window, redirecting its focus to the direction Jaime was still hiding every time it hit an obstacle in its path. 

The taste of Cleos’ blood hit him again and Jaime shuddered, scrambling to turn on to his stomach. The automatic fire started a new round, causing more breaking glass and ricocheting bullets. Jaime thought of the big money action movies he and Tyrion loved to watch when they were kids. Only this time it wasn’t contained within the silver screen and if Jaime wasn’t careful he’d be swiss cheese like his lunch companion. He scrambled to get behind one of the large marble pillars that surrounded the terrace, moving through the spreading pool of Cleos’ blood and keeping close to the ground. With his head still pounding, the movement was more of a clumsy slither than a low crawl.

When he reached the safety of a large looming pillar, Jaime used what little courage, or more likely stupidity, he had left to peer carefully from the side of the large structure and observe the calamity.

The Trant squealed to a stop.

Car doors popped open on the driver and passenger sides and two men jumped out, both heavily armed with automatic weapons and belts of ammunition. They wore the somber gray uniforms of the North’s military police but were missing all the finery that denoted their identity or rank. The man who came out of the driver’s side had an air to him that made Jaime’s skin crawl. His eyes were disconcertingly pale and he was big-boned with sloped shoulders. His skin was pink and blotchy, his nose broad, and his long black hair hung limp against his shoulders; he looked the caricature of a cookie-cut villain. He turned his head, missing Jaime who stayed hidden, and surveyed the carnage, looking thrilled by the destruction he caused. A glint in the sunlight made Jaime look closer to realize the man had one small decoration on his person: a red garnet in the shape of a teardrop hung from his ear. 

“Don’t see a body; looks like the fucking Westerosi survived,” announced his companion, casually laying his gun against his shoulder. The man who’d come from the other side of the Trant was a stout man with a bad case of balding. Jaime couldn’t help but think of Kermit the frog. Frog-man had heavy jowls and his middle reminded Jaime so much of a keg that he might have laughed if he wasn’t still in shock about the fact he almost died. 

Were they talking about him?

The first guy, the far younger of the two, nodded and with a cock of his gun he was opening fire on the terrace again.

“Shit!” Jaime shouted to himself and crouched back behind the marble in a fetal position, head to the floor. 

“Little lion man!” The younger man called out, voice falsetto. “Won’t you come out to play?”

 _Like hell_ , Jaime thought. The bullets stopped, likely because they needed to reload another round, but he didn’t think it was smart to stick around. He jumped to his feet, bounding off the patio to the ground floor of Bolton Square.

“Shit!” he heard Kermit shout, “It’s him, hurry up, Snow!”

Jaime glanced back only to see the two of them crouching, the younger man, Snow, pulling another gun off of his shoulder. A busy intersection loomed ahead, the cross of Euron Street and Victarion Way. It was one of the busiest intersections in the city, and Jaime jumped the last remaining distance down to the street level as gunfire went off behind him.

Windows exploded apart and bullets ricocheted off the old stone structures that comprised most of the buildings on this street. 

“Gunmen!” A man behind a lemon cake stand shouted before being stopped by a bullet to the throat. 

A newspaperwoman dove into a shoe store behind her, throwing her papers up in a grand flurry, and children who’d been buying the sweet treats from the lemon cake man screeched with terror as they ran into an alley. 

It wasn’t uncommon for the underbelly of the city to make appearances in daylight from time to time. Hundreds of gangs went about their business in Winter Town, which had been a haven to them after being driven out from the other six kingdoms. But this no-holds-barred two-man shoot-out was an aberration in the normal day-to-day violence if the reactions of the locals were anything to go by. They looked just as surprised as he felt to be caught in a crossfire. 

Some brave drivers inched along the intersection in their cars, favoring to ignore the mayhem to make it to their next appointment on time. 

He wove through the congested intersection, more janky Trant cars with their gauche hanging man insignia moving around him while he ducked one way and another. A horn blared, causing him to freeze in place. A taxi stopped just short of plowing into him. He looked up at the driver who leaned on the horn and gave him an irritated glare. _Get out_ , Jaime started to mouth, but unknown to him the fleeing crowds had parted, leaving a clear view of him and the driver. A stream of bullets obliterated the driver's side and Jaime dropped to the ground in shock, rolling quickly to the side as the vehicle slowly inched forward. The horn stopped. 

Jaime raised himself up from the ground to watch the car roll by him without a driver to attend to it. The man sat there not a moment before looked like Cleos now, where what was left of him lay splayed out over the center console and passenger seat. 

Kermit and Snow were only one large intersection away. Jaime swung his head around, looking at each storefront of the street, spying an old-school looking shoe emporium, a YFC — formally known as Yi Ti Fried chicken — a pet store, a bar, a grocer, some galleries, and a tea shop in his immediate vicinity. For some inexplicable reason, the glistening posters of YFC called to him as a beacon of safety.

He sprinted down the sidewalk and flung open the glass doors. Dozens of people stood in line, talking to each other about their orders, sitting in booths, and inhaling their meat and fried rice. Jaime took a gulp of air, allowing himself that moment to catch his breath. He let go of the door, feeling blood slip away from his hands and linger on the metal handles. He hadn’t noticed how bloody his clothes were, hadn’t paid attention to all the dots and patches of red all over his front. In the sea of calm normality, he felt that he stuck out like a sore thumb. 

Someone started screaming. Another person yelled he’d been shot. A panic swept the establishment and crowds of customers began pushing past him for the door. 

“The gunmen are outside!” he shouted, trying to hold up an arm to stop them, but no one heard him in the upheaval. They moved past him with determination and Jaime found himself being smothered between the back of a booth and the crowds streaming out the door.

He gave up — they probably would know how to get out of this better than he did anyways — and shouldered in the opposite direction. It was a mistake: the mob was strong and Jaime only floated back towards the entrance. Catching a moment of opportunity, he slipped out of the crowd from the side, finding himself in an adjacent dining room. There was an open door on the other side of the room leading to an empty hallway. 

“Move,” a voice, Snow’s, snarled from the YFC’s front doors.

Gunfire rang out. The screaming increased tenfold. 

With little finesse Jaime pitched himself into the corridor, stumbling into the wall and leaving a vague, bloody outline of his body. He stopped for a moment to shut the door behind him and seeing a stray chair from the restaurant sitting around, he fixed it under the handle. In the quiet containment of the generic-looking hallway, Jaime saw two doors. He could see through a small glass window in one door’s top half that it led outside to an alleyway. He looked at the other door beside it. Shuffling sounds were coming from inside. Jaime sighed. He opened that door to find a large storage room; it was filled with boxes of unopened to-go cartons and shelves of still packaged condiments. At the center of it all were two teenagers who looked at him warily, one kid's hand rucked up deep under the other's shirt, and the other kid’s hand deep down the front of the other’s pants. Instead of looking embarrassed at being caught, they just looked annoyed and bothered. Jaime rolled his eyes. 

“There’s gunmen going through here, you need to hide,” he told them.

The teenagers froze. Their eyes widened and they bolted past him, not sparing him another glance.

Left in their wake, Jaime made short order to follow suit and caught the other door, the one that led outside, just as it was swinging shut on the wake from the two fleeing teens. 

He dashed back out into the afternoon and shivered. Where it might have been balmy weather back home in King’s Landing, it was chilly in Winter Town. The door outside led him to a metal stairway and he followed it down to a grimy looking back alley that rounded back to another street.

That street looked no better than the alleyway. Despite being only one block away from the high street, it was far dingier. Gloomy, discolored buildings rose up around him, managing to look used and abandoned all at once. At home, these buildings would have been a structural code violation, but up North they were testaments to the multiple administrations that had tried and failed to take foot with the Northerners. He scanned the area, looking for markers. He was about two blocks east and one block south of Bolton Square. Was there a subway stop near here? That would likely be his best means of escape. There were always police there to control the order. But then there were policemen after him. Or were they poor copycats? Cersei, who still had yet to accept that he was not at her beck and call, even years down the line, had thrown an absolute cow when she’d heard he was temporarily moving north and had tried to scare him off with stories about how wild and dangerous the country was, including stories of gang members donning police uniforms. For a politically unstable country like the North, police were typically a common sight roaming the streets, but he had yet to see a single one. 

There was the sound of a crash from the alley he’d left.

Jaime swore. They were forcing the door he’d barred inside YFC. He turned back in the direction he knew would get him back to the high street while he heard gunfire echoing inside. He ran as fast as the constraints of his suit would allow, but he felt the hindrance from it all the same. He reached up, yanked his tie down, ripping the top buttons of his shirt in the process. At least he could breathe now. He only had a few seconds before his pursuers caught up and caught sight of him.

He looked right.

An abandoned Sept loomed above him. Since making its way across the narrow sea, the Faith of the Seven had tried several times to make a foothold in the North but had never succeeded. The lonely boarded-up sept was a reminder of how warmly the locals up here regarded southron folk and their customs. The roof of the sept rose three stories high and its old bell tower nearly twice that. A simple chain-link fence separated Jaime from the lot and with a look to the left and the look to the right and still having not a single policeman arrive to save his tail, Jaime decided the decrepit sept was as good as any. The sound of yells and screams caused him to glance back and see that his followers were more wily and athletic than he’d given them credit for as they wove past clusters of people, dodged cars, and miraculously rolled over the hoods of moving vehicles without somehow getting hurt. People who’d been walking this section of the street continued to meander past him, either ignoring or uncaring of his bloody suit, and he couldn't help but wonder how often of an occurrence this was in Winter Town for him to receive this kind of reception. Not too far from him, Snow and Froggy had reached the sidewalk. They weren’t further than a block from him. Jaime decided this spot on the fence looked good as any and scaled up the chain-link fence so fast, he lost balance at the top and fell over onto the loose gravel ground on the other side without much ado.

“Oof!” Jaime rubbed his head and rued that his face plant paired with his fall backward on the granite terrace earlier _surely_ must mean he had a concussion by now. If he wasn’t careful he’d kill himself by unwittingly bashing his head on the ground all on his own.

“He went in the Sept!” he heard Snow shout on the other side of the fence and imagined the two gunmen must be reloading to gun him down before the house of faith. He scrambled to his feet, running to the door of the sept and hoping to whatever gods he needed that luck would come through. He jammed his hand down on the handle to the front door and wanted to cry with relief when the door swung neatly open.

He jumped in not a moment too soon as he was quickly followed by a barrage of bullets. Briefly, Jaime sagged against the hard stone wall at his back. Unlike open-air restaurants and shoddily built markets, the solid stone would keep him safe. If he were back home, Jaime might be filled with guilt for ruining a sept in such a way, but the graffitied walls of the establishment painted a very clear picture of what the Northerners thought of this place and he imagined no one would be sorry to have a reason for it to go. 

He heard the two curse. 

Then he heard a din in the distance. 

Sirens. And they were coming closer. The bullets stopped.

Jaime peered out a window and saw a small legion of police cars speeding west where he was still hidden in the sept. Snow and Kermit appeared to hear the sirens too. They cursed again, looking in his direction. They made a hasty retreat, only for Snow to stop once, look Jaime dead in the eye, and grin before making one last shot at him. 

“Fuck!” Jaime yelled and ducked back down, holding his arms over his head. 

He heard a screech and whirring of the engine when they finally made it into their car, and like all shitty quality Trants it sputtered briefly before the engine roared.

After the sound of their car made it into the distance, and he heard some sirens break away to follow the shooters, Jaime finally lifted his head to see one of the police cars had stopped on the street below and a policeman was squinting to where Jaime was stationed. With an exhausted grin, he waved. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter Summary:  
> While out at lunch, Cleos Frey sees a gunman aim in the direction of where he's sitting with his lunch partner Jaime Lannister. Cleos is able to push Jaime to safety but is killed. Jaime runs only to be pursued by the attacking party of two. The reader may recognize one of the men is Ramsay Snow while the other is a frog-like man that Jaime refers to as "Kermit." He is not yet explicitly identified. Jaime is chased across town, with some civilian casualties occurring. He seeks refuge in an abandoned sept. The pursuers stop when the police begin to arrive.
> 
> Notes from ASOIAF Canon:  
> Cleos Frey originally travels with Brienne and Jaime when they leave the Stark encampment. He dies.


	3. Chapter 2: Posterior to Death

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sdwolfpup is a godsend and an amazing beta.

**Bolton Square, Winter Town, The Present** **  
****Sunday, September 9** **  
****1:21 PM**

Jaime shivered. The stone bench he sat on was cold. The front of his suit was covered in chilled blood. It had not yet completely dried. He was back in Bolton Square, wrapped in a blanket a K9 unit officer used for their dog. After the police met him outside the sept, they’d been quick to give him the only blanket they had on hand and whisk him back to where the shootout began. The intersection of Euron Street and Victarion Way was packed with vehicles, investigation and emergency aid underway. Jaime was instructed to take a seat and wait, and he’d spent nearly a half hour shivering in the cold. 

“Hello,” a voice said quietly above him. 

Jaime startled. He glanced up. An older man stood before him, of middling build and height. His skin was pasty, and his face looked like it hadn’t grown a single speck of hair in it’s life. He wore a black suit with a pink and white striped tie under a heavy dark grey wool coat that was open enough that Jaime could see the inside was lined with red. 

“I am Detective Inspector Bolton,” he introduced himself. His voice was soft, it sounded like a whisper. He held out his hand. Short, strong fingers waiting for Jaime to reach up and shake his hand. So he did, noticing the dried blood on his hand after the DI’s hand was clasped with his. The man paused. 

“I understand you were here when the shooting started.”

Something about the man threw Jaime off. Perhaps it was the eerie way in which he spoke. Perhaps it was the depthlessness of the man’s pale eyes. Whatever it was reminded Jaime of an incident he had when he visited the North a few years back. A blockade of officers had stopped his vehicle on the highway between Winter Town and White Harbor and forced every person of the group he was with to pay a rather hefty toll in order to be allowed to pass. _You try living on fifty dragons a month,_ an officer told Jaime while pocketing what bills Jaime had on hand.

DI Bolton felt more dangerous.

“Yes,” Jaime said simply, “I was here when the police shot at me.”

“No,” Detective Bolton corrected, his voice might almost be a hiss if Jaime didn’t think by now that it was just his natural tone. “They were dressed as police. There’s a difference.”

“How do you know?” Jaime argued. “You didn’t see them.” He looked away from the DI to the body of Cleos Frey. The young lawyer was slumped to his side on the ground. His body not yet touched while a forensics team ran around the area to snap pictures. The puddle of his blood was smaller now, partially absorbed by his wool suit.

The DI pursed his lips. 

“How many people were hit?” Jaime asked, doubting the detective would be as concerned about case confidentiality and legalese as they were back home. 

“Ten.”

“ _Ten?_ How many of those people died?”

“Six.”

“Six people? With all due respect, you don’t seem very concerned about people being fatally shot in broad daylight.”

DI Bolton shrugged. “There’s not much we can do. Gangs can be unpredictable and cartels run deep and are difficult to handle for a force like ours. We should consider it fortunate that it was only a few. ”

He spoke the truth of it. In the North, where a new totalitarian administration seemed to be in power every decade or so, it had become a hot spot for cartels from down south to move in, especially after they were driven out from the south. And between one government toppling and another rising, they’d etched themselves deeply into the underbelly of the North’s cities. Jaime had been advised by several coworkers he should consider “protection payments” just another part of doing business up north. Jaime had many problems with the whole situation. 

“What _I’m_ trying to understand,” the DI went on, “is why those men would want to chase _you_.”

Jaime looked at him, then he looked back down at Cleos, “Look, why haven’t you covered him up?”

DI Bolton gave him a look that was equal parts confusion and disdain. “He won’t mind.”

“I do. I knew him.”

“How?” he pressed. “What is your relation to Mr. Frey?”

Jaime stuck a hand inside his jacket to feel for his money clip. He pulled his security badge out of it. Miraculously it looked untouched, though a few bills on the outside seemed to have soaked in a bit of Cleos’ blood. He gave it to DI Bolton.

The DI looked at it, face expressionless while his eyes scanned over the whole card. 

“You’re part of the restoration project?”

Though Bolton’s voice was still the soft monotone he’d used their whole conversation, Jaime bristled. It was something he’d heard before. Why would a southroner get involved in an event so Northern? Jaime’s admittedly not-high opinion of the detective inspector was becoming less and less. His inclination to fire back with a smartass comment kicked in.

“I don’t know, why don’t you look at the card?”

DI Bolton didn’t frown, per se, but he paused, and Jaime reveled in the indication of his displeasure. 

“What is your role?”

“That’s confidential.”

“It might be important to this case.”

“Then contact the commission.”

“And what about him?” DI Bolton looked down at Cleos’ body. 

“He was another lawyer on the job.” Jaime explained that Cleos Frey was part of the Northern representation. A foreign-born national, married, two kids. What he didn’t specify, because he didn’t think DI Bolton had any right to know, was that Cleos had been responsible for arranging Jaime’s access to Northern archives. Mostly things that had been bottled away by the multiple administrations for a rainy day; the rainy day coming in the form of Jaime. Cleos wasn’t particularly bright, and the fact he held a law degree was a bit of a question to Jaime, but he was a fairly amiable guy and an agreeable person to have assigned to watch Jaime while he went through all the old musty documents. They’d started building a tentative work relationship on the discovery that Cleos’ mother was a distant Lannister cousin, and it had been good enough for Cleos that Jaime wasn’t so tightly watched while he pored over documents that had never seen the public eye. 

It had been awhile since Jaime had seen such a disfigured corpse. He’d only seen one other in his life—his mother’s—decades ago, and it was equally as terrible as this. He was a kid then, six years old, giggling and talking to his mother while she leaned over from the sidewalk to put a newborn Tyrion in the backseat. They’d just dropped Cersei off at ballet. It had been a single bullet, a stray bullet the cops had said. _Moving gangfight traveled a bit, it was a freak chance._ But it was one hollow-ended bullet to her head too many and six year old Jaime could only buckle himself out of his car seat and sit beside her until a dogwalker found him mute and tear-stained beside her, Tyrion crying for gods knew how long in the car seat. 

He could still feel that terror that had welled in him, though he’d made his peace with it years ago. Death was never a simple affair. Not in his experience. 

“Looks like they used expanding rounds,” DI Bolton observed. “Pulverised bones, liquified organs, the usual.” His voice held as much feeling as if he’d been talking about taxes.

Jaime looked at the DI. He was perturbed by Bolton’s pale eyes. Lighter than stone but darker than milk, but not the same pale lavender hue as the Martell-Tagaryen queen, they were a barely there grey—ghost grey. There was a smell to him. Like he was _too_ clean. Jaime was not sure how he felt about that., but he was bothered about how indifferent Bolton was to the body beside them. Jaime pulled the blanket from his shoulder and crouched down to lay it over Cleos. 

“We cover our dead,” he said sharply.

DI Bolton was unimpressed. “The members of the Ministry of Justice are often targets of crimes and do little in concern for their safety. They all received their warnings well before going into office.” He looked down at the covered corpse and Jaime thought he saw the slightest bit of a sneer on his face. “He’s not the first lawyer to die and he won’t be the last.”

Jaime seethed. 

“Maybe the new king will solve it all?” DI Bolton asked, raising his brow.

Jaime felt his teeth grind. “Anything has to be better than this.”

The DI gave him a cold stare. “You never answered my question.”

“Which question?”

“Why were those men chasing you?”

Jaime’s mind flashed back to Snow. To his voice ringing falsetto as he cried out “Little Lion Man” and Jaime hid. Something about the DI threw him off; Jaime couldn’t quite put his finger on it. He’d met cops who were a little stiff but objectively okay people; the DI did not feel this way. Jaime needed to find Arthur and talk to him.

“No clue, but maybe you could do your job and you’ll be able to tell me. I already told your guys what I know. What they looked like, what they were wearing. I’ve got nothing else.”

DI Bolton stared at him. Jaime grew irritated, “Look, you’ve seen my fucking clearance, your guys ran my ID, you can easily find me. I’m freezing in my colleagues blood. I’d like to head back to my hotel and change. Can you get someone to drive me back to The Smoking Log?”

The DI took his time to reply, pulling his silence out in a power play Jaime had never had the head or interest for. 

DI Bolton held out his clearance card. He snatched it back. 

“Of course,” he responded, voice soft and silky smooth. Jaime wanted to shiver from the way his tone set him off. “I’ll have one of my men take you there immediately.”

* * *

 **Queenscrown, The Present** ****  
**Sunday, September 9** **  
****7:30 PM**

Alys Thenn tried to relax. She leaned against the doorframe, breathing in the night air. Her shawl rested languidly around her shoulders. Inside, she thrummed with frantic uneasiness. Her hands, hidden behind the shawl, were clenched in tight fists. Her heart twisted with anxiety. An anxiousness for all the things she did not know and that which she was giving up. She pressed her nails deeply into her palms, hoping if she pressed hard enough, she might earn those deep-seated crescent moons that would draw blood. 

Sigorn, her husband, had been wary of her lately. He was worried for her and remained watchful. He knew how much it agonized Alys to rip them from this life they shared, all in the name of duty, to circumvent their children’s lives, but she could not stand down. Not when the next option was Cregan. Harrion, her brother, had spent his whole life preparing for this role, just in case, but he was gone. Alys would have to pick up the mantle her father and brother had hoped their whole lives for.

It was chilly that evening, typical this far up North, but her children, Wylla and Styr, didn’t notice. They ran around the grass in the backyard, wrestling with their father and ramming their little bodies at him again and again and again, screeching and bursting with energy. Occasionally one of them would glance her way, checking to see if she was watching and she would pull her mouth into the faintest imitation of a smile. 

Sigorn looked over at her, rising unsteadily from the dogpile of their children and waved sheepishly. Alys gave him a soft smile, a real one this time, and waved back. This rough and tumble play fighting, some game of heroes and monsters, was his idea, something he’d done often while growing up on the clan reserve. Now that the reserve was no more, taken by the administration in power twenty-five years ago, Alys often let him insert these traditions into their children’s lives when he requested. He asked for little.

Alys checked her watch.

“Thirty more minutes!” she called out. The kids paid her no mind but Sigorn raised a tired hand to let her know he heard. Wylla headbutted him in his unprotected stomach, causing him to grunt. Styr yelled a warcry and jumped on top of his father. Sigorn made a dramatic fall to the grass, worthy of any mummer’s play.

Alys turned back inside, closing the kitchen door behind her. 

Brienne, her close friend and another professor at the university where Alys worked, stood at the sink, drying the dishes. Alys moved beside her to put away the leftovers Brienne had already portioned for the Thenn’s fridge. She would need to find a paper bag for Brienne to put hers in for the drive home.

Brienne had her phone connected to the kitchen speaker, playing a podcast from a national news station.

_Today crowds of fifty-thousand were pleased to welcome Roland Waynwood as he visited the Harbor Memorial Hospital in White Harbor. Roland, the expected candidate for the Weirwood throne, took time out of his visit to —”_

“Stop!” The words burst out Alys. No, she was working herself up. She needed to calm down. She needed to take a deep breath and—“ _Turn it off_.” 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Notes from ASOIAF Canon:
> 
> Alys Karstark is a member of House Karstark, a noble house in the North descended from early Stark brother, Karhold Stark. Her brother Harrion is Lord. With no children of his own, Alys is his heir.
> 
> Sigorn marries Alys Karstark due to the machinations of Jon Snow in ADWD. As his father before him, he is the leader of the Thenns, a free folk clan that prides themselves on being more sophisticated in their culture than other free folk clans.
> 
> Roland Waynwood is set to eventually inherit the seat of House Waynwood, Ironoaks after his father. In pre-canon history, an unnamed daughter of Joceleyn Stark married a unnamed man of House Waynwood. I've taken the liberty of implying that this daughter married into the main branch of House Waynwood, making Roland a distant Stark descendant. 
> 
> In canon, The Smoking Log is an inn in Winter Town.


End file.
